The Y Loves Apricot
September 14, 2017
The Y Loves Apricot
Score 10 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Overall Satisfaction with Apricot by Social Solutions
Apricot by Social Solutions is being used with various programs across the entire YMCA of Greater Pittsburgh association. Currently, we are tracking data for the following programs:
1) The YMCA of Greater Pittsburgh's Hope For All Program - a program which helps to identify households in the Pittsburgh area facing financial hardship, and provide them with access to benefit programs and supportive services.
2) The YMCA Youth Creator Space - a year-round initiative serving youth in the ultimate environment in which to explore and learn STEAM (science, technology, engineering, arts and math). The program is designed to help kids learn how to think, not what to think, by teaching the mental model of design thinking.
3) The YMCA Prevention Program - an evidence-based prevention program that helps identify the link between early traumatic life experiences brought on by environmental and family factors, and the extent they play in delinquency in our youth.
1) The YMCA of Greater Pittsburgh's Hope For All Program - a program which helps to identify households in the Pittsburgh area facing financial hardship, and provide them with access to benefit programs and supportive services.
2) The YMCA Youth Creator Space - a year-round initiative serving youth in the ultimate environment in which to explore and learn STEAM (science, technology, engineering, arts and math). The program is designed to help kids learn how to think, not what to think, by teaching the mental model of design thinking.
3) The YMCA Prevention Program - an evidence-based prevention program that helps identify the link between early traumatic life experiences brought on by environmental and family factors, and the extent they play in delinquency in our youth.
- Apricot is incredibly user-friendly. Creating forms and reports are pretty straight-forward and allow a plethora of ways to not only collect data but to review and analyze the data as well.
- The team at Apricot is incredibly responsive. I have contacted customer support on numerous occasions. Every time, the representative was patient and thorough, and always followed-up to ensure that the question I had was resolved completely.
- Apricot is always updating and enhancing their product. They very much take into consideration the feedback presented by its users. They are understanding in that they always provide updates and changes during low-productive time (late nights and weekends).
- I do wish reports had the same capability of being copied as forms do. Often, I have a report that I want to have multiple versions, but currently, I believe, the reports need to be developed separately (or customer support contacted so they can do the copy "behind the scene").
- I wish the main screen for Apricot was a little more flexible with viewing options. Would appreciate the option of having folders containing the various forms, etc. Currently, I have a long list of forms with no real way to segregate them.
- I also wish that the registration of users wasn't as time-consuming with many different moving parts. For our purposes, we don't need a very high level of security so I'm sure the purpose of various levels of security is helpful to others.
- With our Hope For All Program, we have had the ability to track trends with clients in order to show the need and request additional funding.
- Additionally with our Hope For All Program, we have been able to track assistance with tax applications over a few years to be able to determine that over time, more individuals were able to do their taxes on their own and did not need to rely on our services, which allowed us to be able to serve other individuals.
Our Hope For All program has uses the data to track trends of services over time. We are able to know ahead of time which periods of time (i.e., months), we will see a higher percentage of individuals seeking particular services. This has been incredibly helpful with staffing situations as well.
While we have been using Apricot for close to 4 years, we are still new to having a reservoir of data in which to pull valid numbers for approaching new funders, etc. I hope to be able to respond more positively in a few years.